Grey Gardens

If you’ve never seen the strange and utterly compelling documentary Grey Gardens—even better, if you have—you really ought to make a point to see it on the big screen at LACMA on Sunday afternoon. One of the film’s co-directors, Albert Maysles, will be here to introduce the film and take part in a Q&A with author and filmmaker Liz Goldwyn afterward.

The documentary follows “Big Edie” and “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale, a mother and daughter—relatives of Jackie O.—living in a dilapidated house in the Hamptons, which Big Edie had purchased with her late husband many years before. The Jackie O. relation is the hook—how can these strange women living in squalor be related to the most glamorous woman of her era?—but it is their relationship (not to mention their own fashion sense) that is truly the core of this film. Sure, it has a bit of a car-wreck, must-stop-and-look feel, but it’s also a truly fascinating film. Here’s the original trailer, to give you taste: